The present invention relates to a software management method of a mass storage device that is accessed by a plurality of clients.
In companies and so forth, large-scale computer systems in which a plurality of computers (hereinafter ‘client computers’) are mutually connected via a network are built. In such computer systems, a variety of data, programs, and the like, used when a task is executed by means of each of the client computers, are provided, and hence a mass storage device is connected to the network of the computer system. Here, a mass storage device is a mass storage device system or similar that comprises a multiplicity of hard disk devices. The mass storage device is shared by a plurality of client computers. Further, storage regions contained in the mass storage device are allocated to each of the client computers. The user of each client computer uses the storage region allocated to them to store and read data, software, and so forth.
One usage method of a mass storage device connected to the network is a method of starting up a client computer known as ‘remote booting’. In remote booting, the operating system required to start up the client computer, a variety of files such as the configuration files, and application programs, and so forth, are stored in the storage region for each user of the mass storage device in advance. Each client computer is able to start itself up by reading these files from the mass storage device via a network.
By using remote booting, the client computers do not require a mass storage device (hard disk device or similar, for example) for storing a variety of files or the like. In addition, the software (including the OS, and application programs) used by the client computer can be integrally managed in the mass storage device, meaning that there is no need for work such as updates, virus checks, or the like, for each client computer.
Technology that relates to the shared OS and shared application programs of the abovementioned remote booting is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-259583.